Edward "Ed" Grayson Gerdes, 76, of Jonesboro died Friday, March 5,2004 at
St. Bernard's Medical Center.
Born in Greene County, he had resided in Jonesboro since 1951. He was a
member of the Ramers Chapel Methodist Church, the American Legion, the
Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Greene and Craighead County
Genealogy Societies.
Survivors include his wife, Mildred Catherine Stephens Gerdes of the home;
two sons, Randal Gerdes of Jonesboro and Mark Gerdes of Conway; a
brother, Marion Gerdes of Jonesboro; a sister, Melva Deane O'Neal of Fort
Worth, Texas; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Louis H.C. and Ollie Pearl Brown
Gerdes, and a brother.
Funeral services will be at 1 p.m. Monday at Roller-Farmers Union Funeral
Home chapel, with the Rev. Larry Hunt officiating. Burial will follow in
Greene County Memorial Gardens in Paragould.
Active pallbearers will be Douglas O'Neal, Ronnie Tritch, Larry Gatewood,
Greg Gerdes, Orin Tritch and John Sifford.
Honorary pallbearers will include Ted Pylant, Morris Hoffman and the retired
National Guard "Coffee Break" group.
Visitation will be from 5-8 p.m. today at the funeral home.
Memorials may be made to the Greene County Historical Society or the
Craighead County Genealogy Society.

Oct 1996:
Much of what is
happening in the GenWeb today goes far beyond the original intent. I
was responsible for the second state, Arkansas, to go online under the
GenWeb project started by Jeff Murphy in Kentucky , April 1996.

The original intent was that there would be a place to put the necessary
resources available for each county and state on a page. These pages
would be crosslinked across the nation providing a genealogy network of
family charts, histories, queries, surname list, and resources available
at each local area. These would be posted at the interest of the
individuals hosting a particular page, needs of the local genealogy
society's, people researching family lines, and crosslinked as family or
historical information related to other county/state s in the GenWeb was
requested.

It was not the intent to rule, specify, or otherwise control what was
posted on each individuals page that they volunteered to host. It
was my choice to let each person control and be responsible for the content of their own page, as long as the
purpose of genealogy was served, and that the state, county, or myself
were not discredited or otherwise embarrassed.

I feel as long as the county's page contains the information specific to
that county with no ties to commercial enterprise, we are serving the
needs of those researching family history in Arkansas. This information
would be: 1) queries, 2) surname list, 3) locality
available list of resources and addresses of libraries and genealogical
societies, 4) family charts and histories of those in the county,
crosslinked or otherwise, and 5) county information with links to
specific state/county research information.

It was not the original intent to collect copyrighted information to
place in the hands for commercial enterprises, or in databases to which
information can only be obtained by a select few, possibly even at a
cost to all.

There are several very good examples of the original intent in place
today. Craighead and Lawrence County, Arkansas has several family charts posted and
crosslinked to other counties/states. All these charts do not reside
on my server. Some are extended pages from people with connections to
Lawrence County. The pages reside on the servers of those individuals
collecting the data. It is their data, they control it, and keep it
updated. As family connections are made, crosslinks are formed, the
links are added to tie the information together. This is a powerful
way of sharing information across the nation without getting your data
in the hands of commercial enterprises who have only one intent.